The 19th-century tobacco factories of Fifth Street

Fifth Street is a 2,500-foot stretch of Lynchburg's history. This historically African-American section is packed with 57 contributing buildings, about half of which date from 1875 to 1940. It includes a variety of residential, commercial, and institutional buildings located within the urban core.

Construction on tobacco factories here took place between 1877 and 1885. By the 1920s, the area included the M.R. Scott Meat Market (1919), the Miller Tire and Battery Company (1927), and the Adams Motor Company building (1927). You can still spot the Humbles Building from 1915 and the Moser Furniture Company building from 1936.

The Augustine Leftwich House has been standing since circa 1817. Other significant structures like the Kentucky Hotel and the Western Hotel have their own separate listings. The Kentucky Hotel, for example, features a brick façade built in Flemish bond with a cornice of corbeled brick.

Today, the district is a National Register site, preserving everything from the 1929 Fifth Street Baptist Church to the 1940 Tal-Fred Apartments. It remains a dense, surviving piece of the urban core that encompasses 57 contributing buildings and one contributing object.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons